


this is me trying

by crimsonheadache



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Crack Treated Seriously, Drarry Strugglefest 2020, Drunken idiots, Fluff, Frottage, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry is a disaster bless him, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Human Disaster Harry Potter, Multi, Sassy Draco Malfoy, Semi-Public Sex, Shameless Smut, a little dean/seamus, all the feels, past homophobia, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonheadache/pseuds/crimsonheadache
Summary: Harry’s eighth year at Hogwarts has proven to be quite a large pain in his arse for many reasons. He never in a million years would have thought he would have Draco Malfoy and that damned lip ring to help blame for that.Draco was just so unrealistically beautiful.And it pissed Harry off enormously.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 17
Kudos: 329
Collections: Drarry Strugglefest 2020





	this is me trying

**Author's Note:**

> So this story has been in my head for so long and I finally had time to write it down! It has a bunch of my favorite classics along with some new ones I was playing around with!
> 
> Beta-ed by the AMAZING @Mx_Maneater! Thank you for the thorough and brilliant beta-ing work, along with the helpful notes and cheer-leading!! 
> 
> I hope you like the disaster!boys! ☺️
> 
> Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

If anyone had told Harry ten years ago that he would be forced to come back to Hogwarts to complete his eighth year after the war, he would have told them they were barking mad.

Yet, here he was—sitting at the eighth year table, which sat at the front of the Great Hall, parallel to where the professors sat at their high table, just underneath but in front of the usual, more extended house tables.

McGonagall thought it was fitting that the eighth years have a table to themselves, instead of resorting to sitting with the rest of the years from their respective houses. Harry, himself, was quite relieved for that if he was honest. It would be rather odd since the First Years now would be sixteen years his junior.

It was hard imagining himself sitting next to First Years, befriending them, and the like.

Just having celebrated his twenty-seventh birthday over the summer at the Weasley’s, Harry was prepared for the fall season to continue his blooming career as an Auror. He and Ron both received special awards back in April for single-handily taking down a wizard who was at large for the past three years on several accounts of murder and rape charges and who seemed to slip through every Auror’s fingertips on the force—except them.

But none of the accolades meant much to Harry (nor Ron).

The force seemed not to mean as much period if Harry was honest with himself, and it had been this way for the past few years.

At the start of working for the Auror department, it was fantastic. Every other day was a new adventure for him and Ron. Going out into the field, saving lives, conquering bad guys.

But after a while…it became quite exhausting.

Harry tried to ignore the hole in his chest that sometimes became a bother, almost as if something was missing from his life.

Every time that feeling reared its ugly head, Harry would go flying to clear the ache or Apparate to Hermione and Ron’s flat for drinks.

He had a good life, sometimes a bit quiet for his taste. But it was fine.

His flat in London was fine.

His nights alone, sitting out on his patio staring into the sky, were fine.

The heroic job that he always assumed he would have was fine.

But as the green-eyed man glanced around the Great Hall, he realized perhaps the last ten years were all for naught, if it only meant him being forced to come back to Hogwarts for a bloody eighth year. His eyes went to the Headmistress, who was currently speaking with Professor Sprout about one thing or another, not looking his way at all.

He wasn’t exactly what you would call “happy” when he received his letter to return to school again. He had thought it was some sick joke. Hermione, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop smiling for weeks on end over the summer, to the disbelief of both Ron and Harry.

Then again, Hermione would be thrilled with anything involving high marks even if that meant having to relive the Hogwarts days once more.

She ended up convincing Ron and Harry both to come, citing that they needed their NEWTS.

Harry strongly disagreed.

At the end of it, however, Ron didn’t need much convincing. As if he would choose to be alone to his own ministrations for a whole year.

They were hardly ever parted, except when she was at her own Ministry office during the day, working at the Obliviator Headquarters.

Taking a breath, Harry looked to his left and right at the eighth year table to take in who all was back for their year.

Luna Lovegood had just sat down two seats down and across from him, smiling placidly at everyone, no matter the color of their robes. That was Luna for you.

Now that he noticed, she was the first of them all to sit closer to the Slytherin side of the table. The blond sat readily between Seamus Finnigan and Pansy Parkinson, where before you could have sat three Hagrids between them, now it seems the space had decreased in size.

There was one thing about Luna that Harry always admired: her ability to bring people and ideas together in the most interesting times.

He was slightly surprised at the number of Slytherins who were even allowed back, let alone came back on their own will.

He watched as Pansy Parkinson (smiled?!) at Luna, and she nodded back with a small grin of acknowledgment before the Slytherin turned around to Blaise Zabini and continued whatever conversation they were having before Luna sat down.

Odd.

Harry turned his head the other way towards where Ron and Hermione were sitting and chatting with Neville and Hannah Abbott about Quidditch teams this year. Further down the other side of the long table, Harry saw Lavender Brown speaking with Justin Finch-Fletchley and Dean Thomas.

“Oi, would you look at who is walking in now?”

Harry followed everyone’s line of sight and turned around in his seat to see what the commotion was about. He noticed that the cacophony of sounds from the hall lowered exponentially at whatever/whoever had just entered.

Harry’s mouth dropped open in shock, horror, and other feelings he couldn’t get a handle on at the moment, as he saw none other than Draco Malfoy strolling up to the Eighth Year’s table.  


The taller man walked straight up to the “Slytherin” side, fitting in between Pansy and Blaise as Harry still stared, his mouth still hanging open in shock.  


It wasn’t the fact of seeing Malfoy for the first time in a while (which would have probably been enough to warrant an inevitable reaction from Harry).  


It was the fact that he had this strut about him when he walked in, nothing like Harry remembered him from seventh year or the trials for that matter. Which—now that Harry thought about it, the trials were the last time he ever saw him.  


Until today.  


Harry had spoken up for Malfoy and his mother. He’d felt it was the least he could do for her since she had helped him in the war. And Malfoy himself—well, Harry felt obligated in a sense to him as well.  


Why? He wasn’t quite sure.  


Probably for the same reason, he saved his ruddy arse from the fiendfyre seventh year.  


But Hermione seemed to think he had changed his ways. Often, she even brought him up casually in conversations at the pub or the dinner table.  


Ron thought it was a load of bollocks at first, like Harry. But Hermione assured them that the man had changed for the better. Several years after the trials, he started working as one of her interns at the Ministry.  


And now, as claimed by Hermione, he had his valued spot in the Obliviator Department at the Ministry, and he was working towards becoming a Healer in the next year.  


He watched as the pale man sat down at the table, laughed at something Parkinson said, his lips smiling in a way Harry had never seen.  


Then the light reflected on something on his bottom lip, as his smile lowered into a more subdued grin, and Harry squinted his eyes to make it out.  


It was a bloody lip ring.  
Draco Malfoy had a lip ring hanging off his lip, well, not hanging exactly. More like looped around his bottom lip, hugging it.  


He watched as Malfoy stared across the table at Millicent Bulstrode, who was going on and on about some sort of newspaper article, and Malfoy took his bottom lip in his teeth in thought as he listened to whatever it was she was gossiping about.  


Harry swallowed.  


“You alright, mate?”  


Harry blinked and looked to Ron, feeling the heat rise to his neck, and shrugged as he took a bite of his pudding.  
“Yeah, all good.”  


He then found himself drawn into a heated argument between Dean and Ron about whether the Chudley Cannons were going to be able to surpass the Holyhead Harpies this year. Typically, Ron would be all for the Cannons, but with Ginny playing for the Harpies for seven years now, his loyalties had switched.  


Harry found himself not as engaged in the conversation as he usually would be, as he glanced back again at Malfoy at the other end of the table.  


Then again, Harry had found having any interests besides work and flying (whenever he could get out).  


It was rare for Harry to feel interested in anything other than work and flying these days, but he did want to force himself back into the dating scene.  


Ever since Ginny and he separated, he had been casually seeing other people, opening himself up.  
Or at least, trying to.  


The thing was, Harry was gay.  


And Ginny was the only person on this planet that knew of this fact.  


Even Ron and Hermione might have had their suspicions, but Harry hadn’t told them. He was trying to come to terms with it himself, before letting it out to the whole Wizarding world.  


It was the main reason why he and Ginny broke off the engagement to begin with. He had a feeling that she had known even before he did. Of course, the rest of the Weasleys still welcomed him to events, dinners, and holidays like before—even after they had split.  


And Harry, of course, accepted the invites—begrudgingly at first, knowing that while they still loved him, she was their daughter after-all. But now the family had come around, and it was like old times with the Weasleys.  


It probably helped Ginny, and he was still best mates (besides her sticking her nose in his dating business every other week).  


He tried forgetting about that time she sent him a dildo from one of her favorite sex shops in Diagon. Even thinking about it now makes him shudder.  


He’d never admit to her that he tried it once.  


Or twice.  


Harry had tried to date on the down low, seeing a few men here and there, but he was always afraid of The Prophet catching wind, so they all normally fizzled out after a few dates.  


He even tried only seeing muggles for a time, but that never quite worked out either. He felt as though he was hiding something from them.  
He looked back at Malfoy, who was now pushing up the sleeve on his right arm, showcasing black artwork up and down his pale arm.  


He never thought of Malfoy as someone who would go out and get tattoos—yet here he was.  


Sitting here with at least an armful of tattoos and a lip ring to boot.

“Is that new, Draco?” Pansy eyed the blond’s forearm, bringing it closer to her. He allowed her to take a quick peek before getting his arm back to himself.

“These flowers are new. Just had them added last week.”

“They are beautiful,” Luna piped in dreamily, leaning over to stare down at his arm in wonder.

The arm was done quite remarkably, and Harry realized he had never seen a magical tattoo before. But he could see the flowers almost blooming on his arm, the leaves slowly swaying as if some magical force was moving them.

He then jolted in his seat, when he saw the Dark Mark’s remains on that same arm. It was almost as if Malfoy tried to hide the treacherous mark with the other pretty designs surrounding it.

Harry didn’t realize he was still staring until he looked up into Malfoy’s face and saw him staring straight back at him, his face expressionless.

Harry quickly turned his head back to the Quidditch conversation with a lurch, trying to remember to breathe again.

Harry looked over to his right at Hermione and began a conversation regarding their schedules and classes when he overheard Parkinson’s voice again to his left.

“Can you believe that Potter won again?!”

“Well, can you blame them? He has filled out quite nicely over the past few years.”

Harry’s eyes found Parkinson’s own, as hers glimmered in delight, her smirk gaining traction and tossed the newest Witch Weekly on the table in front of her. 

He frowned.

“Just look!”

There, in plain sight, was Harry himself, posing for last year’s edition of the magazine.

“Not my cup of tea. I like them with more meat on their bones.” Bulstrode piped in as if Harry wasn’t sitting two seats down from her.

Also, excuse her, Harry had built up quite a bit since Hogwarts. He was still what you would consider...wiry. But even with more muscle to counter his thinness.

The two then began arguing in earnest with each other at length on who the hottest pick in the past decade was from Witch Weekly’s annual “Most Eligible Bachelor” edition they sent out each December.

Harry grit his teeth, trying to block out that conversation, as he had been Witch Weekly’s pick ever since he and Ginny separated six years prior.

“Potter! Don’t you have a say in this? I saw you look over here.”

Harry fought back the urge to throw the rest of his pudding at Parkinson’s smug face, before clearing his throat. The rest of the table decided to listen in as well.

Brilliant

Ever since the war, he had never had a soft spot for the Slytherin. Even though Hermione seemed to think she had changed. Sometimes, Parkinson even went out with Hermione and Malfoy for drinks after work these days.

And sometimes, according to Hermione, she and Parkinson went out, just the two of them. As old gal-pals or something.

Hermione, Harry noticed, had gotten soft in her age.

Which, wasn’t that just something else? Parkinson and Hermione getting on well enough for a pint after work every other Tuesday?

Ron leaned across the table, however, and snorted when he saw the magazine still laying there. “Oi, haven’t we heard enough of Harry and his legion of followers?”

Harry took that as a cue and snagged the Witch Weekly from the table, vanishing it immediately from sight.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, Parkinson, I would prefer if you could find something else to talk about besides—”

Thankfully, McGonagall took her spot at the large podium to address the Great Hall right now, and Harry leaned back in his seat to not bring any more attention to himself.

Hermione had taken off to the other side of the table, fitting in on Pansy’s other side, and began chatting about some hair product Hermione had borrowed from her, moving the conversation from the article to Harry’s relief.

Minutes passed as the usual announcements took place, and Harry looked to Ron, surprised that he didn’t seem miffed in the slightest that his wife was over on the Slytherin side of the table, speaking to Pansy Parkinson.

He just continued to shove more mince pie down his throat, as if that was an everyday occurrence for them.

Perhaps it was.

Finally, McGonagall got to the bit about the Eighth Years in her speech. She went on about the importance of house unity and acceptance, bringing up the war.

She circled the speech back to everyone coming together in a way she had never seen over the past sixteen years. Slytherins were helping Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs laughing with Gryffindors...

“On that note—the Eighth Years will be rooming in the same tower this year, with no house lines drawn.”

Ron coughed up his drink of pumpkin juice at that, while some of the others wearily glanced around the table.

Behind him, the four other tables stood and applauded.

Harry realized then that this year was going to be much more troublesome than he had initially thought.

^^^^^

And it was all because of Malfoy.

Of course, it had to be him.

Harry couldn’t have an average year back at school without him meddling somehow in his life.

Not that he was “meddling” at all.

His mere presence was enough to drive Harry mad.

Sitting in Potions the very next day, he couldn’t help but glance over at the taller man as he carefully de-thorned his roses before adding them to the cauldron in front of him. Harry noticed how delicate and precise he had to be, and pale his fingers were compared to the red of the rose…

“Oi mate, could you check me on this? Hermione’s been complaining that I ask her too many questions.”

Harry turned to Ron beside him and quirked an eyebrow.

“It’s the first day of term. How is she already on your arse about that?”

Ron only shrugged, his cheeks turning a pale pink.

“You know how she can be.”

“Hmm.”

“Why do you keep looking over at Malfoy anyway?”

Harry’s hand clenched, forgetting he was holding an ashwinder egg, and it exploded in his grip.

Ron was getting better at paying attention to little things, something he had learned from Hermione, Harry was sure.

“Whaddya mean?” Harry played stupid, cleaning his hand with a Scourgify. “What about him?”

The redhead groaned under his breath, stirring the cauldron.

“This better not be sixth year all over again, mate. You were unbearable then! Going on and on about the wanker. I have enough of that from Hermione at home, thank you very much.”

“Harry glared from behind his glasses at his friend, before adding new ingredients slowly to the potion, as his friend stirred.

“I—it’s not the same as—look. I’m just intrigued by it, is all. Here he comes back like he owns the place, with a lip ring and tattoos to boot, and we’re just supposed to sit around like that’s okay?”

Ron stared.

“Erm—yeah?”

Harry felt his face get hot and stepped away from the fumes of the cauldron.

“I mean, I get it mate. It’s Malfoy—I do get it. But Mione is right. People can change.”

Harry stared into the potion, before glancing up at the back of the ex Death Eater.

“He has got to be up to something, is all I’m saying.”

Ron groaned again.

“I mean—last night he sat in the common room with Hannah and Neville talking about the differences between Gillyweed and Shrivelfig. I mean, what kind of rubbish is that?”

“I don’t know, mate—he’s gotten better, and you gotta trust me on that. I mean, Merlin, Harry! Parkinson and him both have been to the house a few times for tea! Hermione invited them, mind you—but still! The fact still stands.

“And don’t get me wrong—it took me a while to get used to as well. Hell, I’m still getting used to it. It wasn’t, but last week, the pointy-faced git was standing in my kitchen beside Hermione, telling her the proper way to filet salmon!”

Harry’s eyes found their way back over to Malfoy as Ron continued. He watched as the taller man stirred counterclockwise three times, then clockwise another two. He kept that going for a few minutes; Harry mesmerized by the long, slender fingers wrapped around the stirring rod.

“Are you listening? I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath trying to take up for Draco sodding Malfoy to you anyway. Madness, utter madness.” Ron mumbled, grabbing the remaining ingredients from Harry.

Probably for the best that he did, since his mind couldn’t have been further from the potion in front of him.

_Fileting salmon with Hermione?_

_What the hell was the world coming to?_

^^^^^

As he was finally leaving Potions, after taking a few last-minute notes (since most of his attention had strayed elsewhere during class), he grabbed his bag and walked out into the corridor towards his next class.

“Harry! Erm—was wondering if I could have a word?”

Justin Finch-Fletchley caught up to him; he must have just left class as well.

“Oh yeah, course.” Harry noticed Justin was biting his lip nervously, and he couldn’t help but think of Malfoy’s sodding lip ring, and how many times he bit his lip in class, shuddering.

Maybe Ron was right, and he needed to stop while he was ahead with the Malfoy nonsense.

He certainly did not want a repeat of sixth year.

“—and wanted to see if you would wanna go with me sometime?”

Blinking, Harry started. “Uh—pardon?”

“Ah, I was just wondering if you were free tomorrow? I thought we could—well if you wanted—would you wannagogetapint?”

Harry's eyes widened on their own accord before he wrangled his expression back to some normalcy. “What was that?”

Poor Justin took a deep breath and asked fully once again, “W-would you like to go get a pint...with me? Perhaps to the Three Broomsticks...” he fizzled out towards the end, looking down at Harry’s feet.

“Oh, that’s uh...you mean like a date, I presume...”

The smaller lad grimaced, but nodded, backing away back down towards the Hufflepuff common room, “Of course, I knew there wouldn’t be any chance in hell that you would be—well, interested...”

His own heart suddenly couldn’t get enough blood to beat at a regular pace—he couldn’t have Justin think that he turned him down because he wasn’t interested in men.

This whole thing was rather odd. I mean they were twenty-seven-years-old, for fuck’s sake. One would think he would know how to properly ask someone out at this point without stuttering around like a First Year.

Then again, who was Harry to talk really about that, as he’d been single for three years now?

After Ginny, there was one bloke for six months. That fizzled out like one of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes firecrackers that went bad.

The sex, however, had been outstanding.

It was the communicating that Harry was rubbish at.

Harry thought it over for a second—as Justin stood before him, transferring his weight from one foot to the next as if he was about to sprint off down the corridor any second.

This was sort of a big deal, he reckoned. Not that Justin would know about his sexuality, ultimately didn’t matter. But Harry had a choice. He could tell him he wasn’t interested in men at all and be done with it like he’d been doing for the past few years.

Or—

He could come out of the bloody closet to everyone once and for all.

“Wait! That isn’t it, Justin. Erm, I mean, I—I am interested in um…men.” His breath caught, and he had to clear his throat. “I just haven’t the time this year, Justin, with coming back and NEWTS and all that. You understand, right? Nothing to do with you, though! Promise.”

Though you are less gitty and pointy, then I usually go for recently.

Harry stopped himself before he made a bigger mess than there already was, but Justin’s downturned face slowly had risen into a crooked smile by the time Harry had finished rambling.

“I appreciate the honesty, Harry. Um, well, I best be off—gotta finish up that damn Charms essay. Flitwick laid it on thick this year, eh?”

Harry nodded, relieved, as Justin took down the staircases towards the west side of the castle, with a bit more pep in his step than before.

He felt this beam of light in his chest that hadn’t been there. It was like a weight taken off, and he smiled to himself.

“Well, this day has been quite enlightening and loads more exhilarating than I originally had planned.”

The light immediately vanished, along with Harry’s smile, as he could recognize that voice anywhere.

“Still, Justin Finch-Fletchley of all people to have the guts to ask you out—remarkable. Dodged a bullet there, you can do better than Hufflepuff. They’re utter bores in the bedroom.”

His velvet-like voice sent a shudder through Harry’s spine as he turned around to face the Slytherin—which was most likely a mistake with the way his face was burning. He did not fancy thinking about anyone in the bedroom right now, especially with Malfoy standing just a few feet away.

But still, his tone of voice irked Harry a bit.

He imagined Cedric Diggory would have been quite good in the bedroom and immediately banished that thought as quickly as it came.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than to intrude on other people’s private conversations, Malfoy?”

Malfoy’s smirk only grew at that. “Hardly private, seeing as it happened right in the middle of the corridor between classes. I was only speaking to Professor Slughorn about some things when I ran into this interesting development.”

“You could have easily walked the other way,” Harry growled, suddenly feeling light-headed, knowing that Malfoy had been privy to that entire conversation.

“And have missed out on that? The savior of the Wizarding world coming out of the closet? Now that certainly is something of a spectacle, don’t you think? I wonder how much The Prophet would pay for—”

Without thinking, Harry grabbed his wand from his cloak, rushing toward the taller man and pushing him into the closest alcove, his wand digging into his pale neck and grabbing him by his Slytherin robes with his other.

Pulling him close, he growled, “Don’t you even dare, Malfoy. I could end you right here, right now. Or have you forgotten that I single-handedly took down Voldemort?”

Malfoy’s eyes widened for a half-second, more of disbelief than anything, before lifting the right side of his mouth in a smirk. The same side of his mouth that had that ruddy lip ring.

“Oh, I am quite aware, Potter. How could anyone forget that marvelous feat?”

Harry’s hand tightened in his robes and slammed him back against the stone.

“I did not come back here to put up with you and your shit, Malfoy.”

“No? How disappointing. I had thought my presence here was the only thing keeping you coming back—I mean, with the way you keep watching me—”

Harry slammed him back against the stone again. “I swear to everything you hold dear, Malfoy—if you dare—”

Malfoy bristled and then sighed rather loudly. “Potter, I realize you are quite daft, but you need to learn how to take a bloody joke. Do you think me spouting off at the Prophet would go anywhere? They know better than to believe an ex Death Eater.”

Harry’s grip faltered in his robes enough for the other man to slip free.

“Fourth year. You managed it. Or do you not remember?”

“Oh, I remember Potter. I also remember we were—what, fourteen?

“Merlin, and here I thought you had some sense of maturity about you after all these years. Some of us have indeed grown up some since then.”

Before Harry could reply, Malfoy straightened his robes and spoke, his voice becoming more level as he looked Harry directly in the eyes.

“I would never sell anything to The Prophet anyway, a bunch of arse-kissers.” He ran a long-fingered hand through his hair as he finished straightening himself up from where he’d been rough-housed, his eyes still stuck on Harry.

Blinking, Harry straightened up his posture, feeling suddenly small. “Right. Well, I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

Malfoy’s damnable smirk reappeared as he glanced once more at him. “Yes. I suppose you must. Besides, if I could sell this bit of information to anyone, it would most certainly be to Witch Weekly. Could you imagine the nude covers they would ask for you for the male readers? You’d win “Most Eligible Bachelor” for every year forward.”

The tall git sauntered past Harry, smirk still intact as he made his way down the stairs. “That is certainly something I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing.”

He paused as if in thought.

A slender finger tapped on his bottom lip to exaggerate this, to Harry’s annoyance.

Annoyance quickly turned to...something else, as Malfoy ran the tip of his finger over and over that ruddy piercing, his tongue poking out to meet it.

“Then, I might have to get my subscription instead of borrowing Pansy’s every month.”

Before Harry turned to say something else to him to have the last word, but the other man was long gone. It took him staring into space for another 3 seconds before realizing the meaning behind the last spoken words, and he suddenly felt boiling and freezing all at once.

Harry walked back towards the common rooms, muttering about getting his temperature checked by Hermione. There must be something going around.

^^^^^

Draco was just so unrealistically beautiful.

And it pissed Harry off enormously.

After the first week of classes, everyone had agreed to go out for some drinks at The Hogs Head. Harry wanted to feel more surprised at the immediate agreement of pretty much all of the eighth years at this, but he slowly realized that some old bonds and rivalries from the past were no longer even existent.

Harry heard the low clink of the firewhiskey glass against Malfoy’s silver lip ring as they all settled into the booth with their drinks.

And that was when he realized he was madder than he initially thought.

The group consisted of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Seamus, Hannah, Justin, Malfoy, and Parkinson.

Neville had some Herbology paper to write, as he was looking to be the next Professor Sprout once she retired next year.

The rest of the Slytherins decided against it as well, and only Malfoy and Parkinson came with, to Harry’s bewilderment. Hermione and Ron hardly gave it a second thought.

They all began speaking about the first week at Hogwarts, complaining about Trelawney and Binns, the usual stuff. Then the conversation shifted to more personal matters.

“I’m just excited for Neville to get the position next year finally,” Hannah mused with a small grin. “He deserves it.”

Harry looked to Malfoy and Parkinson, expecting a sneer or some rude comment, but found none.

“Is it set in stone for him to get the position?” Hermione asked.

Abbott nodded excitedly. “Sprout has pretty much already handed him the gauntlet.”

Harry offered his congratulations, truly happy for his friend, as the conversation moved to Quidditch yet again.

“Yeah—Gin is doing well with the Harpies. Real good, I’d say. The team has gotten loads better since they traded Raser for Stafford. Now she doesn’t have to worry about getting knocked around by too many bludgers.”

Nodding in understanding, Harry took a sip of his firewhiskey, feeling Malfoy’s eyes on him.

After a while, the conversation seemed stilted with Hermione muttering about work with Parkinson and Malfoy at the other corner of the booth when Seamus slammed his hand on the table across from Harry.

“Alright! Who wants shots?”

Murmurs of ascent followed, some more eager than others. Yet Finnigan took no prisoners, and they all had shots sitting down in front of them 2 minutes later.

“To new starts! And old friends!”

Harry watched as Parkinson and Malfoy took the shots quickly, no one mentioning the “old friends” bit of the sentiment.

A few more seconds of slow dribble passed, when, “Erm, Potter? I mean, uh...Harry…?”

Harry jolted in his seat and stared unblinkingly as Parkinson stood up from her seat to walk around to where he sat. She seemed uncharacteristically nervous.

“I just wanted to—well…”

She bit her red-colored lip as she glanced over to Malfoy, who nodded once.

Clearing her throat primly, she continued, “I wanted to apologize. For my actions during the war. They were unfitting and unbecoming.”

The table rang silent; the clattering of glass from the bar behind him made Harry jump slightly.

“You don’t have to say anything either. I know this is coming across a bit odd and out of character. I just wanted to start anew, as Seamus noted earlier, and well -

Taking a deep breath, Harry replied quietly, “Thank you, Parkinson. I do appreciate that.”

The woman smirked down at him, nodding once as though mission accomplished, before walking around back to hers beside Malfoy.

Surprisingly, after that admission, the night progressed nicely. More shots were taken, conversations were had, and all achieved house unity.

During the night, Seamus passed out in his seat and Hannah, and Pansy helped get him up and back to school, as the two of them were still sober enough to Apparate.

Justin left then as well, muttering about Transfiguration homework he’d forgotten, even though Harry strongly believed he was in no sort to write up any homework tonight.

Hermione and Ron then gave their goodbyes shortly after that as well, a bit too touchy-feely for Harry to stomach.

Harry only then noticed as he watched his best mates stumble out of the bar that this left him alone with Malfoy.

A few short seconds pass before Malfoy abruptly stood and walked to the bar. Harry assumed he was paying, and he settled in to finish his drink alone when the blond came back with two shots floating in front of him.

_Oh._

“Alright there, Scarhead?”

Harry gritted his teeth, but immediately relaxed when he saw the playful expression on the other’s face. He didn’t think he’d ever seen him look so carefree. It made him appear five years younger than he was.

It was a good look.

They both downed their shots and chuckled, stacking the empty glasses to the side of the table for the waiter to get later, along with other empties from before.

Malfoy reached up and fiddled with that bloody lip ring with his slender fingers, and Harry’s blood ran hot.

“Why did you get that lip ring? Didn’t it hurt? When did you get it done?”

Words started coming out before Harry could stop it. And Harry could feel his cheeks coloring as each new question popped out before he could swallow them back.

On the other hand, Malfoy didn’t look unperturbed in the slightest, only smirking across the table at him.

“Why, quite interested in my lips, Potter?

 _Oh, you have no idea._  
Harry knew he was blushing then, and he looked down into his Butterbeer. “No. I just—well. Was wondering is all.”

“Uh-huh.”

Malfoy ordered them two more shots with a Butterbeer. And Harry had a thought that perhaps this was how Malfoy was planning on ending him.

There were a few more moments of silence after they took the new shots until Malfoy had to go and ruin it.

Harry didn’t ask about Malfoy’s ex— it just started spewing out of the other man’s mouth like vomit.

“Unambitious he was, that wanker. Nothing like a Slytherin,” Malfoy mused thoughtfully. Harry had to hand it to him; he handled his liquor much better than he ever would in his current state.

“Never left the flat. Always wanted to sit and have a long chat about the world as it was. Never about the future or what he wanted to do or see or learn. I fear he didn’t even know how to read, the poor sod.”

Harry tried to hide his giggle in his butterbeer, to no avail. He tried to ignore the prickle of emotion he experienced at the change of conversation.

The idea of Malfoy genuinely believing these things about his ex somehow made Harry feel like another weight had been removed from his chest.

This week had been about removing odd weights from his chest, it seemed.

Which was unusual on its own, and Harry tried not to dwell too heavily on it. He didn’t want to think too hard on whatever weight was there, to begin with—that he didn’t even realize there until now.

“Well...sounds like some interesting bloke you had there, Malfoy.”

Then, a thought occurred to him.

“But...Astoria? Weren’t you two together for a while? Hermione mentioned it years back,” he explained at Malfoy’s raised eyebrow. “She has spoken of you about you working in the same department and all that. And it came up once.”

Or twenty.

“Ah, yes. We were married for a few years. But it just didn’t properly work out between the two of us. There was always something missing. A piece that I couldn’t explain, and still can’t, truly.”

Harry nodded without even thinking it through; he understood more than he realized. That was close to mirroring his feelings towards Ginny towards the end of their relationship.

“Which—good ol’ Astoria always knew I fancied blokes as well. I was never good at keeping secrets from her. She was as cunning as they come, my Astoria.”

His hand reached to grab onto his Butterbeer just to have something to do; Harry felt a weird wave of something or other come over him at the “my Astoria” comment.

He downed the rest of his beer.

There was then a silence, not uncomfortable per se, but Harry felt an opening left for him to offer up some information about an ex to equal it out.

_Damn it all to hell._

“The sex was shit.”

Malfoy coughed his sip of Butterbeer as delicately as he could, a smirk gracing his features. “Pardon?”

“My ex. Ginny.”

Malfoy’s grey eyes seemed to become four levels soberer in that instant suddenly, and Harry felt the exact opposite, feeling for his Butterbeer and remembering he had just finished it off thirty seconds ago.

“Yeah, at the end of it, I could barely even get myself off, let alone her.”

“Sounds like you should get that looked into, Potter.”

Was this his new life? Making barbs with Malfoy about their sex lives with their exes at the Hogs Head?

Harry snorted. “Not that she was bad, or ugly, or—oh Merlin, if Ron heard me say this about his sister, I would be a dead man for sure.”

Malfoy smirked across the table. “Well, a good thing, it’s just us then.”

Harry hummed into his empty pint glass.

“She was beautiful. And fiery, and wanted to see the world. No, no...not just ‘see’—conquer.”

“And you have had quite enough conquering for the two of you, I suspect.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully.

“Exactly right. Not that I wouldn’t say no to some traveling, of course, but I can’t make a life or career out of it.”

“Not to mention the fact that you like sucking cock probably came up at some point, I imagine.”

Malfoy’s silky voice rang through Harry’s hazy mind, and he gripped his glass tighter.

“Not that that is any of your business, Malfoy.” Harry stared coolly across the table, reaching in his robes for his money.

All Harry could hear in the back of his mind was Vernon Dudley’s harsh voice, You best not turn out to be a pillow biter as well as a magic freak, or we might have to throw you outside to sleep at night. Wouldn’t want you molesting Dudley in his sleep.

“Tut tut, no need for all that now. I already promised you I wouldn’t snitch. I always keep my word.”

The way Malfoy’s voice never wavered made Harry feel well enough to trust him. Or it could have been the whiskey.

Harry then started with a realization; his eyes widened behind his glasses.

Malfoy mentioned a male when speaking of an ex. Was that a slip of the tongue? No -- people never accidentally used the wrong gender on their bloody exes!  


He carefully watched as the man sipped at his whiskey, his nails drumming to the beat of the music in the background. But he didn’t look like someone who just accidentally outed himself.  


Perhaps he was already out, and everyone knew.  


Everyone but Harry, it seemed.  


Moving his hand out from his robes, he settled back down in the booth.  


Maybe Malfoy was bi? That seemed likely enough; he mused as his eyes drifted down to where the blond was mouthing the words to whatever song was playing, his piercing moving in time as well.  


He then resolutely decided that it was indeed the whiskey as he paid particular attention to Malfoy’s throat as he swallowed some more of his Butterbeer.  


Harry breathed out slowly through his mouth before taking another rather large gulp of his drink.  


“You should tell them, you know. Hermione and her idiot.”  


He usually would have felt a surge of anger with the other man for saying that, and prodding so in his life; instead, he felt exhaustion fraying away at his nerves.  


“I know.” Harry sighed. “It’s just—well, it hasn’t come up really, I suppose.”  


Malfoy looked as though he didn’t believe him but didn’t press. He didn’t need to. Harry stood up to get another Butterbeer, grateful for the second to clear his head.  


He then turned with his new drink in hand and felt hot when he saw Malfoy’s gaze trained directly on him. He sat down, adjusting his robes as he did.  


“It’d been weird since Gin, and I broke up. We’re still good mates and all, but—” Harry worried his bottom lip, thinking of the right words, “She knew about me, and it wasn’t easy at first. But one day, we met up for a drink, and things were right again between us. Her taking the mickey out of me for everything I put her through and vice versa. It was good for us.  


“She also owls me every week with different names of people she wants me to go out with.” Harry grinned carefully into his drink.  


“And? Do you?”  


Harry looked up and across at Malfoy and saw genuine curiosity woven into his expression. Along with an underlying something else that Harry decided to ignore before continuing.  


“A few times, very...discreetly…” His face felt hot.  


“Well, I must commend you on that. I haven’t caught a whiff of it in any article or paper. Not that I pay much attention to that rubbish.”  


“I try.”  


There was silence again, and Harry looked up at Malfoy, his gaze impenetrable.  


Harry’s heart fluttered, and he quickly downed the rest of his Butterbeer, immediately regretting doing so as he noticed Malfoy’s gaze became three shades darker from that.  


“Well, it’s getting late, I suppose.”  


“Glad you’re still aware enough to tell time, Potter.”  


The joke felt less threatening and more friendly, and Harry let it slide with a smirk. “Quite right. Best be off, eh?”  


Standing up, Harry made sure his robes covered his crotch area, not wanting Malfoy to see how he was affected by just sitting there with him. Not that it was him, of course. He always got a little randy after he drank.  


Especially going on five months without sex.  


Malfoy nodded in assent, following him out of the pub and back to school. Not a word was spoken between them on the way back.  


^^^^^  


Harry waited until the common room was clear, minus Hermione and Ron, who looked as though they were about to vanish up to their shared room by the look of them sitting relatively near on the couch. Harry was surprised they hadn’t already left to go up, but he guessed they were worried about him.  


“I have something I need to talk to you all about.”  


The two straightened up immediately, Hermione smacking Ron’s wandering hand away for the time being. “Oh no, what happened, Harry?” Hermione took one look at her friend and knew something was amiss.  


Harry loved that about her.  


Ron turned his head towards his best mate, urging him to continue.  


“Well, it’s not that big a deal really...just something I have meant to tell you both. For quite a while.”  


“Well, go on then, mate—spit it out!”  


Hermione slapped the redhead on the arm. “Ron! Let Harry say it in his own time.”  


Both their understanding expressions, plus the firewhiskey, gave Harry the courage to come out with it.  


“I’m gay.”  


Hermione blinked once, twice, then suddenly arms were wrapped tightly around Harry’s neck. “Oh, Harry! Thank you for telling us! It means so much to us.”  


Once Hermione found her seat again next to Ron, Harry managed to glance up at his other friend.  


He looked as though he hadn’t moved an inch, his eyes wide and unblinking at the dark-haired man before him.  


“You’re...gay? But what about Ginny?”  


Harry fidgeted in his seat. “Yeah—she, uh, knew. Knows. It was a major reason for why things didn’t end up working between us.”  


Ron’s eye twitched.  


Harry then used all the alcohol he consumed to soldier on. “I honestly had to figure it out. I never really had the time at Hogwarts to find out much about anything besides killing Voldemort, let alone anything about myself.”  


Hermione nodded emphatically. “We know, Harry. I am so proud of you for being open and honest.” She grabbed his hand in hers, and Harry smiled timidly at her.  


Ron glanced away, his brows scrunched in thought for a few seconds before he nodded slowly. Harry could see the wheels turning in that head of his.  


“Yeah, mate—I mean. Of course, we support you no matter what. Not going to lie; it’s a bit odd? But—”  


Ron took a few seconds, looking deep in thought for a bit. Then he smiled slowly and genuinely and stood up, a bit wobbly considering the amount of alcohol he’d consumed earlier. “Come up here then, you maniac.”  


Harry smiled crookedly and stood up, arms wrapping around the redhead.  


Ron slapped him on his back and whispered drunkenly in his ear, “This isn’t an excuse for you to grab my arse, is it?”  


Laughing loudly, and feeling an immense sense of gratitude for his friends, Harry slapped him on the same arm his wife hit earlier, and Ron yelped.  


^^^^^  


The next week, things were weird.  


Even though Voldemort was gone and he didn’t have to worry about his ever-lasting presence, another presence always seemed to loom around, though not nearly as evil.  


Malfoy seemed to be everywhere. Harry was, no matter if he was walking to class or eating in the Great Hall for breakfast. 

Even when he took walks down to the Black Lake, Malfoy was always either making his way back to the castle or sitting a ways away, studying or doing whatever it was Malfoy did.  


Harry tried not to notice. But it proved difficult when the git seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once.  


That Thursday, he walked to bloody Transfiguration and noticed the man walk past him towards the same class (McGonagall must have gotten a good laugh putting all the Eighth Years in all of the same courses).  


His robes were pulled up to showcase his pale arms and his tattoos as well, and Harry squinted as he saw a snake look as though it was looking back at him and hissing at him.  


Entranced, Harry hurried his stride to see if he could catch up and get a tiny bit closer to get a better look—  


_Boom!_  


Harry collided face-first with a suit of armor that happened to be in the way of him walking, collapsing in a heap on the floor.  


“Harry! Are you alright?” Hermione leaned down and over him while he tried his best to stop seeing bright lights.  
“Yeah—I’ll be alright, ‘Mione, thanks.” He took Ron’s hand as he helped him up, and pointedly ignored Ron’s confused stare and Hermione’s knowing glance.  


He grabbed his forehead in a grimace and forced his feet to walk the rest of the way to class.  


He tried to ignore him throughout Transfiguration, and he could have sworn he saw Malfoy smirking over at him as Hermione carefully covered up the mark on his head from the fall.  


^^^^^  


In Potions the next day, Harry could feel Malfoy’s never-ending gaze on him again. He had to triple count his ingredients to make sure he had the correct amount.  


He felt hot and cold at the same time.  


After the class was over, he found himself being one of the last to leave yet again, though he couldn’t find the reason why.  


He watched as Malfoy finally packed his things and turned to leave as well when a hand suddenly grabbed his upper arm and pulled him into an empty alcove, where he was suddenly pressed up against the wall.  


“Merlin, Potter—you have no idea what you do to me, do you?”  


Harry openly gaped at the man before him, realizing how close they were. He could feel the other’s hot breath against his own.  


Harry swallowed. “I—I don’t know what you—”  


“Saturday night,” Malfoy breathed, his lips inches from Harry’s own. “I wanted to jump across that bloody table and have my wicked way with you.”  


Harry’s green eyes went comically wide behind his somewhat smudged glasses, the hinge of his jaw dropped open, leaving him floundering like a flobberworm.  


Er,” he said again, rather eloquently.  


“Did you not think I noticed how hard you were when you stood up from the booth that night?” The taller man leaned down into the crook of Harry’s neck and inhaled.  


“Malfoy—” Okay, so it was just tough to keep swallowing when your throat had gone entirely dry. Opening his mouth, he uttered a squeak, then cleared his throat and tried again to no avail.  


“Try to deny it. I also saw you crash into that bloody statue yesterday when you were following me. Paying too close attention to my arse, were you?”  


Swallowing, but not denying that statement, Harry leaned his head to the side, giving Malfoy more room to continue his ministrations. He had moved on to lightly kissing his neck, and Harry wasn’t about to stop him.  


“Thought so.” Harry felt Malfoy’s smirk against his neck as he blew air on a particular, wet spot of his pressure point.  


“I—” Harry gasped as he realized that they were in the same bloody alcove in the same corridor from the last time when Harry had pushed Malfoy and threatened him after the Justin incident.  


Except, this time, he was the one pressed against the wall.  


“I might have—” he coughed, throat dry, “—been looking...”  


The blond git’s smirk widened, the left side of his mouth twitching as he brought his face back to Harry’s, and Harry caught sight of that ruddy lip ring again.  


Images assaulted Harry’s already-fuzzy vision: him sucking that piercing, along with the reddened bottom lip, was one that wouldn’t leave his mind, and Harry felt his face grow hot.  


“You want to know what I think? I think you haven’t been able to take your eyes off me all year.” He stepped even closer, their robes swinging against each other. “Tell me you want this.”  


Harry sucked in a deep breath, looked the taller man up and down, and made the easiest decision he has made in the past decade.  


He muttered a quick, wandless Muffliato and a disillusionment charm before he reached up and grabbed the back of Malfoy’s head, meeting him for a proper snog.  


He immediately licked his bottom lip before taking it in his mouth and sucking it between his teeth. His straining erection nudged against the man’s slender thigh, which was now pressed deliciously up against him.  


Harry started thrusting against the taller man, their bodies fitting together more perfectly than he wanted to delve into at the moment.  


Right now, all he cared about was more.  


Malfoy grunted, tightening his grip on Potter and pushing him against the stone wall as if to cement him there.  


“Look at yourself,” Malfoy muttered as Harry threw his head back, his mouth open in a silent moan, cheeks pink.  


“Malfoy—”  


The frottage stopped abruptly, and Harry whined pitifully in the back of his throat, trying to get the momentum from just seconds ago back again.  


“Please…”  


Malfoy shuddered slightly against him, and Harry felt the smirk against his cheek, Malfoy’s breath hot against him. “Begging, are we? Imagine—if the Headmistress caught us right now, what would she think, hm?”  


Harry shook his head, reaching behind Malfoy to grab his back and tried to push his hips into the others. His voice itself would probably be enough for Harry to finish, but he needed the touch.  


“Malfoy, I swear to Merlin, if you don’t finish this—”  


Grey eyes looked down at him contemplatively.  


“What’s my name?”  


Harry’s brow furrowed.  


“Malfoy? What are you going on about— ”  


The man in question grinned as though it was the most adorable thing he had seen and taken a step back from Harry, shaking his head. Harry groaned at the sudden lack of body heat.  


“If you can’t call me by my name when you come, I don’t think you get to come at all.”  


“No, no—Draco, please.”  


A step closer, their robes swaying together, and Harry needed more. “Please,…Draco. I need—”  


Malfoy took another step closer, their bodies touching again, and he lifted a slender hand to touch Harry’s blushing face.  


“That’s it—say it again.”  


Harry wanted to scream in outrage, but his weeping cock needed to feel more. “Draco.”  


His arms suddenly flew up, a silent Incarcerous spell tying his hands above him, leaving him to face Malfoy’s ministrations.  


Harry wasn’t complaining about, as the other man licked against his throat and started thrusting against his pelvis at record speed.  


“Yes! God, please, don’t stop—”  


Harry had his head thrown back, trying to push even closer to the other man when he noticed his pelvis was somehow glued to the stone behind him now.  


The only movement happening was Malfoy’s wicked body against his, writhing in pleasure. Harry looked in his face and saw those eyes staring down at him, watching his every expression.  


Malfoy’s expression was one of fire, his bottom lip between his teeth.  


Harry watched him, eyeing the lip ring and suddenly had the vision of Malfoy on his knees, sucking his cock and feeling the cold lip ring against him, his mouth hot, and he shut his eyes with a whimper.

Malfoy suddenly dragged his pelvis against Harry’s more fervently, his grey eyes glittering in the darkness.  


“Fuck Potter, you are so hot. You wish you could rut against me, don’t you?”  


Harry tried to break Malfoy’s magical hold on his hips to no avail, whimpering in protest.  


If he tried hard enough, he was sure he could. But he had other pressing matters to attend to at the moment.  


His cock throbbed, as Malfoy started ruthlessly, thrusting his clothed erection against him, grey eyes staring him down as though he was the last man on bloody Earth.  


“Come, Potter. Now. I want to see you.”  


Grasping at the Slytherin’s robes, Harry groaned out expletives as he came in his pants, straining against the other with a whimper.  


Malfoy then gasped, leaning forward and biting his neck as he finished.  


He sagged against Harry—who was currently still tied up to the invisible ropes with his arse still glued to the stone wall behind him.  


Instead of asking for help, Harry took it upon himself to magic himself free, concentrating hard on his inner magical core.  


Malfoy must’ve felt this, as he leaned back, watching Harry’s lingering magic dissipate with wonder, as the dark-haired man rubbed his wrists together.  


“You could have escaped... Why?”  


“Huh?”  


“Why didn’t you?” Malfoy’s gaze was impenetrable, and Harry couldn’t handle the scrutiny. All he wanted to do was lie down and take a nap after that delicious orgasm.  


“Erm—because I liked it?”  


Malfoy didn’t look convinced.  


Harry growled, “Bloody hell Malfoy. I knew you weren’t planning on hurting me. And even if you were—I can certainly stand up for myself.”  


Blinking twice, the pointy blond nodded slowly. “Hmm.”  


Harry gritted his teeth, wanting to grab him by the shoulders a

nd shake him.  


“Well...that was interesting.”  


“Quite,” Malfoy smirked, then sucked on his lip ring.  


Harry watched mesmerized.  


“Too bad we didn’t use all this sexual frustration ten years ago, eh Potter?”  


He then turned abruptly and walked away towards the common rooms. On the other hand, Harry decided to go anywhere that wasn’t the common rooms, at least until his mind stopped concentrating on the fact that he just rubbed one-off on Draco Malfoy.  


^^^^^  


A few weeks of Harry desperately trying to avoid Malfoy later, many eighth years decided to play a game in the tower.  


Ron’s mouth dropped. “Spin the bloody bottle? What are we, thirteen?”  


But most of the crew already marked their spots in a circular formation around the dreaded bottle.  


“Let’s make it a tad more interesting then, shall we? I mean, since we’re all of age now.” Seamus leered. “Let’s say if you land on the same person twice, you and the other person have to take off a piece of clothing.”  


Cheers and boos filled the common room area at that.  


“Absolutely not!” Hermione gave the other lad a stern look as he nodded quickly. “Quite right, Hermione, terrible idea. Let’s just play the old fashioned way, eh?”  


Dean, who had just sat down beside Harry, snorted. “Maybe if you could get laid, Finnigan, you wouldn’t be as inclined to us all to get naked.”  


A few more jeers and ridiculous comments on Seamus’s sex life later, everyone seemed settled into the circle.  


Harry looked around and saw Ron standing nearby with his arm protectively around his wife. “Yeah—I don’t fancy me and ‘Mione are gonna play. You lot have fun, you hear? Use protection!”  


Then they both made their way up the stairs to their designated room. Harry figured they wanted alone time together anyways. And then put a stop to that line of thought immediately.  


“Alright, Chosen One, you first!”  


Harry groaned, took a swig of ale, then reached across and spun the bottle.  


All eyes were careful as the bottle slowed to a stop.  


Green eyes met dark brown across the circle, and Harry had to swallow down his disappointment at Pansy Parkinson’s ruddy smirk.  


“Well, come now lovely. I’ve always wondered if the rumors are true.”  


“Oh? And what rumors are those Parkinson?” Harry went to his knees to wobble forward as the woman did the same. They met in the middle.  


“Only that the Chosen One is quite a good kisser.” Harry had no time to think about where she would have heard that tidbit of information before hands grabbed him and pulled him precariously forward.  


Lips met his, as one hand yanked at his hair, and another found its way to his arse, squeezing ever so tightly.  


Harry supposed after that apology; she had full reign to do whatever she fancied.  


Including snogging him senseless.  


The kiss wasn’t…terrible. But it also wasn’t great, especially when Parkinson decided to pull Harry down and straddle him in the middle of the circle, rubbing her crotch over his very uninterested own.  


Harry grunted at that, grasping at the woman’s hips.  


“Alright, Pans, don’t strangle the poor bloke,” Harry heard Malfoy mutter behind Parkinson, and he opened his eyes to see the other man staring down at the scene before him with curious eyes.  


“Aw love, calm your tits. I was only having a wee bit of fun.” Parkinson smirked down at Harry, before landing one more peck to his mouth and hopping off him.  


As Harry blinked and fixed his glasses, Parkinson reached over and smacked him on the arse, and he finally made his way back across the circle.  
“Oi! This is fun, eh, Harry?!” Seamus winked at Harry, who only rolled his eyes.  


He grabbed the bottle himself and gave it a spin. When it landed on Dean, Harry wondered if Seamus did that on purpose, as the two boys stood up and gave a heated kiss, as the rest of the circle clapped and whistled well naturedly.  


After a few more rounds and a few more ales, Harry realized that it was Malfoy’s turn with a jolt. He watched his slender fingers wrap around the bottle, and with a flick of his pale wrist, the bottle was spinning.  


It seemed like the bottle was taking its sweet time this go around, Harry mused, as he watched it slowly stop at—  


Justin Finch-Fletchley.  


Malfoy stood up and sauntered over to the other man, whose cheeks lit up a brilliant red color.  


“Alright there, Justin?” Malfoy seemed to have no shame where this game was concerned, as he stared down at the other man who only nodded, his blond mop of hair bouncing up and down from the force of the movement.  


Harry couldn’t help but think of the time in the corridor when he asked him out a few months ago. And here they were playing bloody spin the bottle, of all things.  


And Malfoy was kissing him. Justin, that is.  


Harry carefully watched as Malfoy’s long-fingered hand touched—no, caressed the other man’s face as he deepened the kiss. His other arm wrapped around his waist.  


On the other hand, Justin didn’t seem to know what to do with his outer extremities as he stood as straight as an arrow.  


Poor bloke.  


Harry watched Malfoy’s bottom lip and remembered how it felt to kiss him.  


And rut against him like a First Year.  


The two found their seats once again, finally, and Harry opened another ale. He must have finished the last at some point in that last kiss.  


The game started up again, and Harry found himself kissing Hannah Abbott, albeit very quickly, to not inflict Neville’s anger upon him.  


Then it was Malfoy’s turn again, Harry noticed. Or maybe he was only taking time to catch when it was his turn, and that was something that he didn’t want to delve too deep into thinking about either.  


He just lifted his ale bottle back to his lips instead.  


The bottle spun and spun, landing on Blaise Zabini.  


Harry stared at the two as they crawled towards each other. The look in the other’s eyes seemed as if he knew what he was doing as if they had been in that position with each other before.  


Harry took another large sip.  


Malfoy grabbed Zabini by the gruff of his collar and dragged him the rest of the way to him. A few folks around the circle hooped and hollered at that. But Harry only stared.  


Their lips met in a rush as if they were starving for each other and couldn’t get enough. Cheers enveloped them from around the circle, as Malfoy’s bottom lip, lip ring included, got sucked up by Zabini’s forceful snogging.  


Malfoy grasped Zabini’s hips and began rutting against him, eerily similar to the experience just two weeks ago.  


When it had been him instead of Blaise.  


Finally, Dean spluttered an embarrassed, “Alright, you two! Get a room if you’re going to go at it like that!”  


They then found their way back to their spots in the circle, Zabini winking at his fellow Slytherin.  


Harry tried unsuccessfully for the next five minutes to not glare at Zabini.  


However, Malfoy couldn’t seem to stop staring across at Harry, his eyes glittering with mischief.  


And the cycle continued from there, every time the blond man spun the bottle, it happened to land on:  


Dean, Blaise (again), even Neville, for Merlin’s sake.  


Was the bottle going to land on every man but him?!  


Harry finished off his ale and Accio-ed another to him, probably a bit too harshly since he ended up with five ales instead of one from the table across the room. He set them to the side for the others, as he clumsily stood up.  


All eyes turned to him when he realized it had been his turn to spin anyways.  


“Erm—right. Well, I’m off to bed. Sorry...I’m no longer seventeen, and I need my beauty sleep.”  


A few boos followed him, but Harry couldn’t find it in him to care in the slightest.  


“Can’t let the Chosen One stay up past his beddy bedtime! Too many wrinkles do not a dark lord-conqueror make!”  


He needed to get as far away from Draco Malfoy as he could before he magiced that damn bottle to land on him next time.  


^^^^^  


The next month was torture.  


Harry wasn’t sure how or why Draco managed to encompass all of his prevailing thoughts, yet he did.  


Rumors about the bloody “spin the bottle” game came out over the next few weeks, and Hermione kept an unusually close eye on him.  


Not that it was that unusual for her.  


Needing some fresh air one late Thursday afternoon, Harry choked down his dinner before heading down to the Quidditch pitch, broom in hand.  


The weather had gotten nippier, autumn had already rolled in, and Harry registered with a start that they were already reaching the end of October.  


The cool breeze felt rather lovely against his face as the pitch came into sight. An array of emotions settled in Harry’s chest, seeing it again after all these years. He was happy to see that the renovations after the war with no burn mark to be found anywhere around or on the pitch itself, to Harry’s relief.  


Reaching into the pocket of his robes, he pulled out his practice snitch and let it go flying. He watched it flutter around him before flitting over the stands and around the posts.  


Harry immediately hopped on his broomstick and, in a surge, was airborne.  


A part of him was angry at himself for waiting this long to fly again, the feeling of it had always been top-tier in his life—hardly much at all could hold a candle to the adrenaline of it all.  


After a few rounds of finding and catching the snitch, he started back towards the ground, a wild grin encapsulating his features as he let the snitch go one last time. However, the ball knew playtime was up and stayed close by, giving Harry time to dismount and right himself.  


Nothing good ever lasted forever, though, he noted, when he noticed a slender figure strolling down to the pitch, broom hoisted on their shoulder as if they had plans to join him.  


_Oh goodie._ Harry thought rigidly, recognizing the blond right away.  


The snitch was floating right in front of him, and Harry went to grab it to put it away.  


Before he could capture it, Malfoy sauntered up the rest of the way towards him and snatched the snitch in milliseconds. His seeker reflexes still seemed to be as intact as they were before, to Harry’s dismay.  


There went his plans of completely ignoring the prat.  


“Fancy a go, then?”  


“I beg your pardon?”  


Malfoy sneered, but it lacked so much of his usual dismay and cruelness that once inhabited his features ten years ago.  


In its place was still the Malfoy-patented smug expression, but with a hint of...fondness?  


“As much as I appreciate a posh banter, we are quite well past all of that, wouldn’t you agree?”  


Images from a month ago in the corridor invaded his mind, and he tried for indifference as he shrugged.  


“I suppose,” Harry muttered, beginning to turn the other way when a hand reached out to his shoulder.  


Harry managed not to twitch away.  


“You don’t believe that I’ve changed, do you?”  


Looking up, prepared to find cold, dead eyes staring bullets into his soul, he saw something far worse.  


Malfoy looked a tad sullen, but sadness and regret pooled in the depths of grey as well.  


They were now standing face to face, so close that Harry could see Malfoy’s breath puffing into the chilled air.  


He had to shake his head to remember how to speak properly.  


“I—I never said, erm…”  


“Right.”  


Harry did twitch out of the grip of the other man then, taking a deep breath.  


“Of course you’ve changed. I do know that on some level.”  


Malfoy stared as if he did care what he said, and Harry swallowed. “I mean, bloody hell Malfoy, you go on happy hours with my best friends without me! And I know that you—”  


“—I tell them to invite you. You always decline.”  


“—and—what? You do, you tell them to invite me?”  


Malfoy grinned, a bit sardonically. “Yes, Potter—I do. I always found it a bit off how they were always out without the main star. Plus, I’ve always liked to have someone else to chat up besides Weasley. Sometimes he can be a bit…plain in the conversation department. One can only talk about the Chudley Cannons so many times before wanting to tear one’s hair out.”  


Harry smirked at that, looking down at the pale hand that still held the snitch.  


“Well, two out of three, then?”  


Malfoy’s answering grin was enough to fuel Harry for weeks.  


^^^^^  


Harry ended up winning the first and last round, while Malfoy won the middle. He had thought nothing could beat the rush of speeding alone on a broom, chasing after the snitch.  


But he had forgotten how it could feel with someone else there to challenge him.  


Ginny never felt in the mood to play after work; it’d been quite a while for him. And Malfoy was a force to be reckoned with off the pitch and on; Harry had forgotten.

Countless times, he got too caught up in watching him make impressive twists and turns in the air, his lithe body perfect for it, that he almost lost sight of the snitch.  


The two walked towards the locker rooms, reminiscing about past Quidditch games—against each other, oddly enough.  


“Remember that first year I played? You should have seen your face when I came out behind the other Slytherin players!”  


Harry scoffed. “Yeah, well, you were a right prat back then—you and your slicked-back hair.”  


Malfoy laughed at that. “My slicked-back hair? Did that do it for you back then, Potter?”  


Making a face, he shook his head as they entered the castle. “Considering we were twelve that year, I’d say no.” He pondered for a moment. “Sixth Year, though...that’s a different story altogether.”  


Harry never had a good filter.  


“Oh? Different as in?”  


Malfoy stopped in his tracks, and Harry realized they were standing in the middle of the locker rooms. Memories of the old Gryffindor team holding their meetings with Wood in here, discussing strategies and the like, rushed to his mind.  


Then he remembered that Malfoy had asked him a question.  


“Just—you were different. Had grown into your pointy face a bit more.”  
Instead of scoffing or yelling as Harry had expected from the other man, he stepped closer and reached a hand out to caress his bicep above his jumper.  


“Glad to hear you noticed. I observed quite a bit about you, too, you know.”  
Oh.  


Harry gulped, and Malfoy’s hand gripped his arm in response. “Would you like to know what I used to think of you back then?”  
“Uh, erm—yes, I would. Very much.”  


Malfoy’s answering smirk drew all the blood to Harry’s nether-regions, as he took yet another step towards him, his mouth against his ear.  


“I used to wank to you in my dormitories all the time. I knew you had your suspicions about me and that you would follow me...well, I would imagine you following me to a lonely, empty corridor...you having your way with me as punishment.”  


“Oh, fucking shit—”  


“Eloquent, as always.” But that didn’t seem to deter him in the slightest, as Malfoy nipped at Harry’s ear, breathing hotly, “I always hoped you could see me struggling and perhaps want to help. And then…”  


More ear nipping turned into neck kissing and nipping, and Harry moaned aloud when he felt the other man sucking at a sensitive spot under his ear.  


He realized then that he was waiting with bated breath for the rest of Malfoy’s story. “And then…?”  


“Then, you would bend me over Slughorn’s empty table in his classroom and have your way with me to teach me a lesson.”  


“Merlin—that is…criminally hot, Malfoy—but also, why the hell bring up Slughorn of all bloody people right now?” Harry thrust his body closer to the other sniggering man.  


“Fuck, Potter—I want you to fuck me like I’ve imagined for so long.”  


Harry couldn’t have stopped the moan from escaping his lips, even if he tried.  


He couldn’t wrap his mind around the thought of Malfoy wanking to him.  


Images in his head of a younger Malfoy, lying in the Slytherin dormitories, his head drew back and wanking to thoughts of Harry sixth year made Harry want to thrust against the other man and come in his pants—again.  


No, they needed to move this somewhere else, or that was what was exactly going to happen.  


“Draco, we have to go somewhere—ah! Somewhere else!” Malfoy was rubbing his bony knee along the underside of Harry’s still-imprisoned cock.  


This was how he was going to die.  


Malfoy then grabbed Harry’s arm and quickly Apparated into a room Harry had never seen or been in before. As he was pulled to the four-poster bed, he realized that this must be Malfoy’s quarters.  


Telling by all the green, it must be. He rolled his eyes at that before the man in question pushed him onto the bed.  


“Merlin, you don’t know all the things I want to do to you.”  


Harry looked up at the other man through his lashes and almost came apart just from the look of pure lust and intensity in his grey eyes. “I want you to fuck me.”  


Malfoy then groaned before grabbing Harry by the hair, pulling his head back until they were face to face. “But what if I wanted you to fuck me?”  


Harry choked on his breath of air.  


“Yes, well, I suppose we could, erm, make an arrangement of sorts.”  


“I’m bottoming, and that’s that.”  


Harry smirked at the sight of the ridiculously strict tone from the other man before leaning back on the bed and opening his legs; he looked up innocently, batting his eyes.  


“But Draco, I’ve wanted your cock in my arse for weeks now.”  


Malfoy growled in the back of his throat, staring at the opening Harry left him, but then grabbing his legs and snapping them back together. “I already opened myself up before we played Quidditch, Potter!”  


Harry sat up in the bed at that. “Merlin, Malfoy! Are we arguing about who gets to bottom? Really?!”  


Then, his words hit him, and he realized something. “Wait—you rode on a bloody broomstick for 2 hours with—after touching yourself—oh, oh god.”  


That also must mean that he knew this was going to happen before he even pranced down to the pitch...  


Not able to contain himself any longer, Harry wrapped his legs around the standing man, until he was lying beneath him on the bed, straddling him.  


“Because of that, I think I will bottom. That’ll show you not to plan everything in life. Sometimes, one must go with the flow.”  


With a shit-eating grin, Harry threw off his jumper and shirt underneath, feeling a sudden chill. Of course, Malfoy kept his room at the lowest possible temperature.  


“Oh yes, and you are such a ‘go with the flow’ type of bloke, aren’t you?” Malfoy teased, as he lifted his shirt over his head and brought Harry down into a brutal kiss, licking and nipping his way into his mouth, then onto his neck.  


His teeth bore down there, and Harry let out a strangled sound, pushing himself down onto the other man’s clothed crotch with a groan of impatience.  


Draco huffed out a laugh against the wet skin of his neck. “Mmm. Pants should go, yes?”  


Harry shakily but hurriedly stood up, and, in one quick motion, ripped his trousers and pants both down, throwing them somewhere against the wall behind him.  


Hands then reached up and took Harry’s specs off before tossing them somewhere behind him as well.  


“Malfoy—if you just ah!—broke my glasses—”  


“There is Oculus-Reparo for a reason, Potter. Also—what did I tell you last time? I want you to call me by my first name.”  


Harry then felt hands grasp his arse and squeeze. “Fuck! What is it with you and your bloody name kink?”  


“Only with you—you’ve never called me by my first name, and, Merlin, it sounds divine coming from you.”  


That was enough for Harry to vanish the rest of Malfoy’s clothes before reaching down and rubbing a hand down the other’s chest, before stopping abruptly, cold slowly running through him at what he saw.  


Malfoy had tattoos on his chest as well, but the scars were still there, and Harry couldn’t stop touching them, as though he could push the marks back into the pale skin and away from it forever.  


“Potter.”  


Harry tried to look at the tattoos instead; they were rather lovely, after all.  


But cold and wet and blood kept coming back to the forefront of his mind.  


“Harry. Please look at me.”  


Slender hands covered his, putting a stop to the rhythmic movement of his hands over the scar. “Please.”  


At the request, green eyes lifted to find warm, grey ones. “It was a long time ago. And you didn’t mean it.” He held Harry’s gaze. “Don’t get me wrong, it took me a while to come to terms with that, but you didn’t mean it. You didn’t know.”  


His hand tightened, and Harry nodded. He reached up with his other hand to try to wipe away the tears inconspicuously, but Draco grabbed that hand as well and kissed the wetness away.  


“Besides, my tattoo artist is a much better tattoo artist than you could ever hope to be.”  


Harry found himself lying on his back with a laugh, Draco kissing him all over, up and down his chest, his neck, and then back down.  


Hours passed before Draco’s eyes bore into Harry’s as he slowly pushed his way into him. He’d prepped him slowly—languorously—until Harry was crying and begging for it.  


Harry didn’t want to put much thought into the fact that Malfoy wasn’t fucking him in the way he had expected. It wasn’t “fucking.”  


But he didn’t want to admit to himself what exactly it was, either.  


He just closed his eyes and enjoyed the press of Draco, the neck biting (was he a vampire in another life?), the feeling of him pushing deep inside of him, and hearing himself begging for him not to stop.  


Finally, he felt Draco come with a groan, and Harry came at that—the feeling of him pulsing inside him enough to make him finish.  


He left his arms wrapped around the other man, needing the touch.  


He was coming to terms with the recognition of how touch-starved he truly was.  


Not that he minded Draco cleaning them both off and immediately snuggling back against him like he was the world’s most massive pillow.  


^^^^^  


A few hours later, Harry found both of them awake again.  


“You know, you are quite splendid on a broomstick.”  


Harry snorted.  


"Are you taking the piss?"

Slender arms wrapped him from behind, and Harry could feel the other’s laughter. “No, you tosser. Even though I suppose it’s a fair question…”  


Harry swatted lightly at Malfoy’s hands, while he was now sniggering outwardly.  


“No, but I’m serious. You should think about doing it more often. Perhaps...for a league?”  


Harry snuggled into the bed more, getting comfortable before answering.  


“I dunno. Maybe.”  


“You know that the Appleby Arrows would take you in a heartbeat.” The dark-haired man snorted at that.  


“Yeah, ‘cause they’re desperate.”  


“I mean it, Harry.” Draco pinched his chest, and Harry slapped him again. “You could get an in.”  


“Nah, too old. Besides, I’m an Auror—and in talks to become Head Auror next year.”  


Malfoy only hummed before nestling into Harry’s back, and Harry himself allowed sleep to take him again with the scent of the other man all around him.  


That next morning, Harry woke up with a foreboding sense that someone was watching him.  


Memories then flooded back from the previous night, along with the familiar ache he recognized as a fantastic buggering.  


Then, he felt a heat of something else, remembering the care and slowness of what transpired last night—not the anger and force from the first time.  


Grinning, he opened his eyes and almost screamed as he saw Pansy Parkinson sitting in a chair across the room, a shit-eating grin plastered across her face. Harry wondered in horror how long she had been sitting there, waiting for them to wake up.  


Bloody lunatic.  


And Hermione says they’re friends?  


Harry poked Malfoy in the side, who had still been smothered against his side in sleep, begrudgingly awoke, mumbling.  


Any other time, Harry would have relished this and perhaps given him a ribbing; however, there seemed to be more important matters at hand.  


“What? Bloody hell, Potter, please don’t tell me you’re a morning person! I can’t deal with—Pansy, what the buggering fuck are you doing in my bedroom?! Didn’t I tell you last time that I was going to murder you if you pulled this again, you bloody bint?”  


Harry’s eyebrows went up at that. This happened…often?  


“Well, if you must know, I had some new fabulously interesting bit of gossip about Milly and Greg, but you seem to be a bit...preoccupied.” Pansy’s eyes gleamed as she gave Harry a full once-over, and he immediately grasped at the sheet, pulling it up to his chest.  


“I didn’t know you were a briefs man, Potter, but I do approve.”  


Harry glanced at the floor, where his pants laid and felt a blush rise to his face.  


“Pansy, I utterly could not give a rat’s arse about what it is that Milly and Greg get up to on the reg. Now, if you please, I would like to get ready for class, and I would prefer it if you left now.”  


“But, love—I’ve seen you in the buff before; this shouldn’t be any different than any other time.”  


Malfoy’s glare must have been quite a sight, because Pansy sighed and stood up, seemingly put out at missing the opportunity of seeing the Chosen One in the nude. “So nice to see you again, Potter. Hopefully, we will run into each other soon again.”  


She smirked one last time at the both of them, lifting her eyebrows at Malfoy in an “I’m impressed” manner before he lifted a pillow and threw it at the woman. She giggled and closed the door right as the pillow hit.  


“Well, that was something else.”  


Instead of replying, Malfoy stood up and went to the bathroom, muttering about stupid bints thinking they own everything. Harry had to bite back his laughter at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.  


^^^^^  


“How was flying?”  


Harry just remembered that he had told his friends he was leaving to go flying yesterday, and memories came back from the day before. “Oh, really well. Really, good, yeah.”  


Harry was scarfing down sausages and eggs as if they were going to be taken from him at any moment.  


Even Ron paused in his morning eating to watch, entranced at the sight.  


“Merlin, Harry—must’ve worked up quite an appetite.”  


“Mmph.”  


“Are you alright, Harry?” Hermione asked as Harry reached over for his juice.  
Harry was just in the middle of his regular morning schedule: checking his mail, buttering his toast, looking over at Malfoy, eating some sausage and egg, checking to make sure Malfoy’s lip ring hadn’t fallen out, nodding to Ron about whatever it was he was talking about to him, checking out Malfoy again to make sure he hadn’t—  


“Harry!”  


“Wha-what? Oh, yeah! Yeah, I’m good, Hermione—all good. How’re you?”  


She did not look at all convinced if her narrowed eyes had any say in the matter.  


“You seem out of it this morning, more so than usual.”  


As Harry opened his mouth to retort, Ron piped in.  


“Blimey ‘Mione, let the poor sod be! You know he’s gotta get in at least three rounds of ‘staring blissfully at Malfoy in before Defense. He’s gotta fuel up, gotta be draining, that.”  


“Oh, quite right. Although, Defense class itself does give Harry the perfect angle to check out Malfoy’s—”  


A sausage flew up, narrowingly missing Hermione’s amused face.  


“I beg your pardon! I do not check out Malfoy’s anything! Or stare at him, or-or whatever other rubbish you two concoct in your spare time!”  


Ron snorted into his porridge. “Listen to ‘im, ‘Mione, he’s even starting to sound like the git.”  
Harry felt his neck warm and rolled his eyes at his two ex-best friends.  


As Ron dodged another flying sausage with a shout, Hermione’s eagle eyes zoned in on somewhere on Harry.  


He looked across at her with unease in his stomach.  


“What is that?!”  


Ron, who had been cleaning off the sausage from his shirt, leaned in as well to see.  


Harry clenched his fists not to cover up his neck, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks.  


He made sure his eyes stayed put on Hermione and didn’t drift a few meters down the table to the cause of said mark on his neck.  


“Merlin, Harry, you look like a Vampire has massacred you!”  
Marks.  


“Erm—” Harry eloquently started, as Hermione’s eyes enlarged even further.  


“Was this from the spin the bottle game?”  


“That was weeks ago, Mione! No way he would have still had any marks from that…right?”  


Ron looked at his friend, confusion masking his face.  


Hermione, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes in her freakish way of knowing everything all the bloody time.

“I must’ve nicked myself shaving, no biggie.” He then shoved a whole sausage in his mouth, before standing up and waving his farewell.  


“I’m going to class. Goodbye.”  


“It wouldn’t have anything to do with your boyfriend just leaving too, eh?”  


Harry turned abruptly to look at the Great Hall entrance with a frown and saw Malfoy’s fluttering robes as he turned the corner to leave.  
He wondered if Malfoy heard his friend’s ribbing.  


On his way out, Harry made sure to give the two-finger wave to his said “friends,” who were still snickering into their breakfast food.  


^^^^^  


After classes were over for the day, and quite a bit more teasing from Hermione and Ron later, Harry made his way outside, the sun shining rather brightly such a late day in the year. The cold breeze was still there to remind him that winter was around the corner.  


He made his way towards Black Lake when he spotted a familiar blond head.  


It was as if some unknown, invisible force kept pushing the two of them together, and Harry was quite frankly tired of fighting it.  


“You never told me why you got that lip ring.”  


Draco looked from where he was gazing into the Black Lake, back to the other man who had just sat down beside him on the grass with a quirked eyebrow.  


“Did I not? Well, I had hoped to keep you in suspense, with the number of times I caught you staring at it like you wanted nothing better but to bite it off and eat it.”  


Harry snorted. “No way. Just maybe suck on it a little.”  


“Well, you succeeded with that. I commend you there.”  


The pair stared back out over the lake and towards the sinking sun overhead, and Harry felt peace for the first time in a long while. The quiet around him, and Draco sitting here seemed to almost add to the aura of calm surrounding it all.  


A few moments later, he spoke, albeit quietly.  


“I wanted to piss my father off,” Draco stated bluntly, relaxing further down on the grass on his elbows. “And I knew the two best ways to piss him off were coming out of the closet and body modification that wasn’t enabled by a particular evil megalomaniac.”  


Harry wasn’t expecting that—even though he supposed he should have a bit.  


“Well, I can’t blame you there.”  


Harry looked back to Draco’s bare arms, watching closely for the moving trees on his left bicep. He realized then that he had never seen his tattoos up close—even after their intimacy, he hadn’t gotten the chance.  


Out of the tall trees, he saw an animal appear out of nowhere as if it was walking toward Harry and away from Draco’s arm.  


Magical tattoos were truly magnificent.  


His breath caught when he recognized the shape of the forest animal walking toward him.  


The stag stopped, looking directly at Harry with a curt nod, his antlers shaking slightly.  


“Is that...a stag?”  


He could see Draco’s jolt, his muscles in his arm suddenly tightened up. “Ah—erm, yes. I was wondering when he was going to show himself the right bastard. I’m, um, surprised it took you this long to notice...”  


Harry couldn’t look away as the stag trotted around the trees, his gaze stuck on Harry as if he was investigating him.  


He finally glanced up at Draco, who was staring unblinkingly at Harry, but there was a warmth to the stare, underneath the apparent nervousness.  


“W-why? I mean...well.” Harry coughed to clear his throat. “Do you know what my Patronus is?”  


Draco rolled his eyes at that amusedly, but with a fond smile. “Yes. That I do.”  


“So...your choice of the tattoo wasn’t a coincidence?” Harry could feel his heart hammering its way out of his chest.  


“None of my tattoos are by coincidence, Potter, I can assure you of that.”  


Harry couldn’t have stopped his finger from lightly running over the lines of the stag, even if he wanted to. The urge was simply too great.  


The stag in question on the blond’s upper arm seemed to like Harry’s touch, as it nodded its antlers at him once more, standing up taller and stretching its neck.  


Goosebumps appeared on Draco’s arm from Harry’s ministrations, and he took that as a sign to continue.  


“It’s beautiful.”  


He was genuinely worried about his heart now, ricocheting in his chest like a banshee at that, his hand grasping the pale man’s arm.  


“He’s probably my favorite. Always running around my arm, moving and searching for something, the tosser.”  


Harry glanced again at the stag and noticed this as well. The deer seemed to trample through the flowers, galloping here and there.  


Harry cleared his throat and smiled. “Does he remind you of anyone then?”  


A self-deprecating smile curved across his lips as he shrugged slightly. “I've always been a bit gone on you.”  
Oh.  


Harry opened his mouth to say something, anything at all but found it quite tricky. He decided touch would be the best course of action, and Draco was suddenly enveloped by Harry, who settled on top of him, looking besotted as he stared down closer at the tattoo.  


He cleared his throat before asking, “What would you get if you were to get a tattoo?”  


“I dunno hadn’t put much thought into it, I suppose.”  


“A big ‘POTTER STINKS’ on your forehead?”  


Harry snorted loudly, and he couldn’t stop the laughter from escaping even if he tried. “Oh, Merlin, or right on my arse?”

Both the men chuckled at that, Draco even falling from his elbows entirely onto his back, his laughter finally dying down, but a smile still firmly in place on his face.  


Harry couldn’t look away, suddenly some pieces of his life came together all at once. That’s how it always seemed to be with him, details coming together at the oddest of times.  


Maybe this wasn’t as odd as he initially thought, he decided as he looked over at the other man.  


“Maybe I will send an owl to the coaching staff for the Arrows.”  


Draco immediately sat up, jolting Harry in the process and almost knocking him out. “Oh, Merlin, no! Potter, are you mad?! Not the Arrows, for goodness sake!”  


Harry started and opened his mouth to complain, but stopped when he saw the ridiculous look of fury on Draco’s face. It reminded him of Crookshanks—mean...but harmless. And hairy.  


“What are you smirking at?! They have been the laughing stock in Quidditch for the past five years! Their uniforms, too, are ghastly! If you’re going to try out for any team, it must be the Falcons. At least they have a good standing.”  


Draco looked at him up and down, licking his bottom lip as if he knew what that did to Harry.  


He probably did by now.  


“Besides, you would look utterly ravishing in their uniform.”  


Heart fluttering, Harry leaned up slightly and kissed Draco lightly on the mouth for the first time without any underlying need.  


Just ‘cause he wanted to.  


Draco must’ve noticed this as well; eyes widened for a split second before pulling them both down together on the grass.  


When they were lying side by side, he stared over at Harry with a look of pure adoration as he grabbed his hand, and yeah, Harry was sure his heart was going to beat plum out of his chest.  


But at least he finally registered that the hole in his chest—and extra weights that had bothered him ever since he left Hogwarts ten years ago—were no longer there.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading lovely people!! Kudos and comments are always welcomed and appreciated.💚
> 
> you can find me for a chat and other drarry shenanigans on Tumblr, @crimsonhead-ache!
> 
> hope everyone is staying safe!!!


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